'You're ahead of me here,' the President said. 'This is news to me. When did you find this out?'
'Just over half an hour ago. I'm sorry, Mr President, but there just hasn't been the time to confirm everything and tell you until now. In two of those banks ? in Mexico City and San Diego — we struck gold. In each of those banks close on three-quarters of a million dollars have been transferred to the accounts of a certain Thomas Thompson and a certain Kyriakos Katzanevakis. It's a measure of those two gentlemen's belief in their immunity to investigation that they hadn't even bothered to change their names. Not that that would have mattered in the long run ? not after we had got around to circulating photographs. One final point of interest. Two weeks ago the bank in Mexico City received a draft of two million dollars in favour of George Skepertzis from a reputable or supposedly reputable, bank in Damascus, Syria.'
A week later exactly the same amount was transferred to a certain Philip Trypanis in Greece. We have the name of the Athens bank and have asked Greek Intelligence to find out who or what Trypanis is or for whom he is fronting. A cent gets a hundred dollars that it is a pal of Andropulos.'
A silence ensued, a silence that was long and profound and more than a little gloomy. It was the President himself who finally broke it.
'A stirring tale, is it not, Sir John?'
'Stirring, indeed. Richard had the right term for it- shattering.'
'But — well, have you no questions?'
'No.'
The President looked at him in near disbelief. 'Not even one little question?'
'Not even one, Mr President.'
'But surely you must want to know the identities of Thompson and Katzanevakis?'
'I don't want to know. If we must refer to them at all I'd rather just refer to them as the general and the admiral.' He looked at Hollison. 'That would be about right, Richard?'
'I'm afraid so. A general and an admiral. Your Admiral Hawkins, Sir John, is smarter than your average bear.'
'I would agree. But you have to be fair to yourselves. He had access to information that you hadn't had until now. I, too, have an advantage that you people lack. You're deep in the middle of the wood. I'm on the outside looking in.
'Two things, gentlemen. As,a representative of Her Majesty's Government I am bound to report any developments of significance to the Foreign Office and Cabinet. But if I specifically lack certain information, such as specific names, then I can't very well report them, can I? We ambassadors have the power to exercise a very wide range of discretion. In this particular instance, I choose to exercise that discretion.
'The second point is that you all seem convinced ? there appears to be a certain doom-laden certainty about this ? that this affair, this top-level treason, if you will, is bound to become public knowledge. I have one simple question. Why?'
'Why? Why?' The President shook his head as if bemused or stunned by the naivete of the question. 'God damn it, Sir John, it's bound to come out. It's inevitable. How else are we going to explain things away? If we are at fault, if we are the guilty party, we must in all honesty openly confess to that guilt. We must stand up and be counted.'
'We have been friends for some years now, Mr President. Friends are allowed to speak openly?'
'Of course, of course.'
'Your sentiments, Mr President, do you the greatest possible credit but hardly reflect what, fortunately or unfortunately, goes on in the more rarefied strata of international diplomacy. I am not speaking of deception and deviousness, I am referring to what is practical and politic. It's bound to come out, you say. Certainly it will ? but only if the President of the United States decides that it must. How, you ask, are we going to explain things away? Simple. We don't. You give me one valid reason why we should move this matter into me realm of the public domain or, as you appear to suggest, make a clean breast of things, and I'll give you half a dozen reasons — reasons equally valid if not more so — why we shouldn't.' Sir John paused as if to marshal his facts but was, in fact, merely waiting for one of the four intent listeners to voice an objection: he had already marshalled his facts.
'I think, Mr President, that it might do us no harm to hear what Sir John as to say.' Hollison smiled. 'Who knows, we might even learn something. As the senior ambassador of a vastly experienced Foreign Office, it seems likely that Sir John must have gained some little expertise along the way.'
'Thank you, Richard. Bluntly and undiplomatically, Mr President, you have a duty not to speak out. There is nothing
whatsoever to be gained, and a very great deal to be lost. At best you will be hanging out a great deal of dirty washing in public and all to no avail, to no purpose: at worst, you will be providing invaluable ammunition for your enemies. Such open and, if I may say so, ill-advised confession will achieve at best an absolute zero and at worst a big black minus for you, the Pentagon and the citizens of America. The Pentagon, I am sure, is composed of honourable men. Sure, it may have its quota of the misguided, the incompetent, even the downright stupid: name me any large and powerful bureaucratic elite that has never had such a quota. All that matters, finally and basically, is that they are honourable men and I see no earthly justification for dragging the reputations ?f honourable men through the dust because we have discovered two rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel.
'You yourself, Mr President, are in an even worse position. You have devoted a considerable deal of your presidential time to combating terrorism in every shape and form. How will it look to the world if it comes out that two senior members of your armed forces have been actively engaged in promoting terrorism for material gain? You may hardly know the two gentlemen concerned but they will, of course, be elevated to the status of highly trusted aides, and that's just looking on the bright side. On the dark side, you will not only be accused of harbouring men who are engaged in terrorism but of aiding, abetting and inciting them to new levels of terrorism. Can't you just see the headlines smeared across the front pages of the — tabloids and yellow press throughout the world? By the time they have finished with you, you will be remembered in history for one thing and one thing only, the ultimate byword for hypocrisy, the allegedly noble and high-principled president who ha$ spent his life in encouraging and promoting the one evil he had sworn to destroy. Throughout the countries of the world that dislike or fear America because of its power, authority and wealth and that, like it or not, means most countries ? your reputation would lie in tatters. Because of your exceptionally high level of popularity in your own country you will survive but I hardly think that that consideration would affect you: what would and should affect you is that your campaign against terrorism would be irrevocably destroyed. No phoenix would arise from those particular ashes. As a world force for justice and decency you would be a spent man. To put it in the most undiplomatic terms, sir, to go ahead as you propose to do you'd have to be more than slightly off your rocker.'
The President stared into the middle distance for quite some time, then said in a voice that was almost plaintive: 'Does anyone else think I'm off my rocker?'
'Nobody thinks you're off your rocker, Mr President,' the General said. 'Least of all, I would say, Sir John here. He is merely saying what our unfortunately absent Secretary of State would advocate if he were here. Both gentlemen are high on pragmatism and cold logic and low on unconsidered and precipitate action. Maybe I'm not the ideal person to be passing judgement on this issue. I would obviously be delighted if whatever reputation the Pentagon has survives intact, but I do feel most strongly that, before jumping off the top of the Empire State or whatever one should give some thought to the fatal and irrevocable consequences.'
'I can only nod emphatic agreement,' John Heiman, the Defence Secretary said. 'If I may mix up two metaphors ? if I am mixing them ? we have only two options. We can let sleeping dogs lie or let slip the dogs of war. Sleeping dogs never harmed anyone but the dogs of war are an unpredictable bunch. Instead of biting the enemy they may well turn, in this case almost certainly would turn, and savage us.'
The President looked at Hollison. 'Richard?'
'You're in the card-game of your life, Mr President. You've got only one trump and it's marked 'Silence'.'
'So it's four to one, is it?'
'No, Mr President,' Heiman said, 'it's not and you know it. It's five to zero.'
'I suppose, I suppose.' The President ran a weary hand across his face. 'And how do we propose to mount this massive display of silence, Sir John?'
'Sorry, Mr President, but not me. If I am asked for my opinions I am not, as you have seen, slow to give them. But I know the rules and one of them is that I cannot be a party to formulating the policy of a sovereign state. Decisions are for you and for what is, in effect, your war cabinet here.'
